"There is only one commission to which delegation of that
authority [the power to impose import duties] can be made.
That is the great commission of their own choosing, the
Congress of the United States and the President. It is the
only commission which can be held responsible to the electorate. Those who believe in the protective tariff will, I am
sure, wish to leave its revision at the hands of that party
which has been devoted to the establishment and maintenance
of that principle for 70 years."--HERBERT HOOVER, October, 15, 1928.

OF all the bureaus, which exist in violation of the letter,
or at least the spirit, of the Constitution, there is none that
is comparable with the Tariff Commission, but the operations of this Commission, since it was reorganized in 1922,
have been so innocuous that little attention has been paid
to its constitutional aspects. There had been prior to the
World War a Tariff Commission, but it was merely an
advisory body to aid Congress and as such it was unobjectionable.

Our form of government has undergone more destructive change in the last ten years than in any previous
decade, unless we except that between 1860 and 1870.
Of all the many changes, which could be readily cited,
two stand out as conspicuous examples of a betrayal of
the basic principles of government as declared in the Constitution.

The discussion of one of these is not within the scope
of this book, as it has nothing to do with the subject of
bureaucracy.

The author refers to the unprecedented action of the
Senate, when it refused to admit two Senators, one from Pennsylvania and the other from Illinois, each of whom
had been indisputably chosen by the people of those States,
respectively, by large majorities. It was not important,
from a constitutional standpoint, that each of these Senators had been nominated by the Republican Party in a
primary campaign, in which there were large and, it may

Notes for this page

Questia, a part of Gale, Cengage Learning. www.questia.comPublication information:
Book title: Our Wonderland of Bureaucracy:A Study of the Growth of Bureaucracy in the Federal Government, and Its Destructive Effect upon the Constitution.
Contributors: James M. Beck - Author.
Publisher: Macmillan.
Place of publication: New York.
Publication year: 1932.
Page number: 191.

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